Venture capitalists have been pouring money into “clean technology” companies - $2.2 billion in 2007, an increase of 46% over 2006. Why are VCs making so many long-term, capital-intensive bets? Which technologies will be world-changing, and which will be duds?

In living proof that there is life outside the Palo Alto / Menlo Park proximity, SVASE will host a VC Panel on investing in Green Tech tomorrow at the Crow Canyon Country Club, in Danville, CA.  (A very green venue for a Green Event).

The panelists are:

• Marianne Wu, Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
• J. Christopher Moran, Vice President, General Manager, Applied Ventures
• Paul Chau, Partner, WI Harper
• Peter Henig, Managing Partner, Greenhouse Capital Partners
• Mark Harris, Relationship Manager, Silicon Valley Bank

Agenda:
6-6:30 pm: Networking and Hors D’oeuvres
6:30-8 pm: Panel discussion and Q/A

For details see the SVASE site, or head straight to registration.

See you there!

Tags: entrepreneurship, Startups, SVASE, vc investment, venture Capital

I’ve pretty much said everything there is to say about Launch: Silicon Valley 2008, a joint event of SVASE and Garage Technology Ventures.

The presenting startup applications are in, being evaluated, and thirty of them will debut on June 10th @ the Microsoft Mountain View Campus.

There is another important deadline now: Monday is the last day you can register at the Early Bird rate, which represents a $50 discount.

See you there in June!

Tags: Art of the Start, business events, DealMakerMedia, Demo, entrepreneurship, Garage.com, guy kawasaki, IBDNetwork, launch silicon valley, microsoft, product showcase, SDForum, silicon valley, Social Networking, startup pitch, Startups, SVASE, Under the Radar, UtR, vc, vc Funding, venture Capital

This year’s TechCrunch 50 Conference is planned to coincide with DemoFall, the (other) premium startup Launch event.

VentureBeat attempts to (well, sort of) explain it with scheduling, but make no mistake, this is a fairly open move against DemoFall, to establish TechCrunch50 as the premier startup launch event. There’s no question that TechCrunch can pull in just about the entire VC community - in fact given the audience pricing, $2000 early bird, and $3000 regular, it’s hard to believe anyone but VCs can afford to attend. Well, VCs and students, as those with a student ID can get in for $149.

The presenting companies will not be charged - that’s a huge differentiate vs. Demo. As I said before, you almost have to be already funded to be able to afford Demo’s fees. I leave it to you to decide which one is more startup-friendly.

Of course they want a real launch show, so the one hard condition is that your product /service will have to be new (unseen) at the Conference. Several commenters are already complaining that they are launching before September, which automatically disqualifies them.

I have a solution for you “early birds”: come join us at Launch: Silicon Valley 2008 jointly presented by SVASE and Garage Technology Ventures. Five of last year’s 29 presenters received venture funding, in aggregate of $30M. That’s not $140M, but not too shabby, either.

How to participate? If by June 10th, 2008 (the day of the event) you will have a product or service available, but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months, then send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to Launchsv@svase.org. Submission deadline: May 9th, 2008. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.) Last year’s 30 (actually, 29) presenting startups were selected from 170 submissions. For details - and attendee registration - check out http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/.

See you there!

Related posts: bub.blicio.us, Valleywag, Jason Calacanis, SheGeeks, ValleyWag, News.com, Silicon Alley Insider, : WinExtra, CenterNetworks, mathewingram.com/work, BoomTown, The Drama 2.0 Show, Geek Gestalt, /Message

Tags: Art of the Start, auto repair, business events, DealMakerMedia, Demo, demofall, entrepreneurship, Garage.com, guy kawasaki, IBDNetwork, launch silicon valley, microsoft, Pleasanton, product showcase, SDForum, silicon valley, Social Networking, startup pitch, Startups, SVASE, techcrunch, techcrunch40, techcrunch50, Under the Radar, UtR, vc, vc Funding, venture Capital

After a long break I’ll be moderating another SVASE VC Breakfast Club meeting next Thursday, April 3rd  in San Francisco.  As usual, it’s an informal round-table where 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher,  Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.  This time we”ll have the honor of welcoming Ann Winblad, Partner, co-Founder of the first exclusively software-focused venture firm, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

These breakfast meetings are a valuable opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to VC Partners. Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:

• It’s a pressure-free environment, with no PowerPoint presentations, live demos, Business Plans…etc, just casual conversation; but it does not mean you should come unprepared!
• Follow a structure, don’t just roam about what you would like to do, or even worse, spend all your time describing the problem, without addressing what your solution is.
• Don’t forget “small things” like the Team, Product, Market..etc.
• It would not hurt to mention how much you are looking for, and how you would use the funds…
• Write down and practice your pitch, and prepare to deliver a compelling story in 2-3 minutes. You will have about 8-10 minutes, the first half of which is your pitch,  but believe me, whatever your practice time was, when you are on the spot, you will likely take twice as long to deliver your story. The second half of your time-slot is Q&A with the VC.
• Bring an Executive Summary; some VC’s like it, others don’t.
• Last, but not least, please be on time! I am not kidding… some of you know why I even have to bring this up. Arriving an hour late to a one-and-a-half-hour meeting is NOT acceptable, but we’ve had too many such incidents, so here’s a new rule:  if you’re late by more than 20 minutes, you will not be allowed to join the session.

Here’s the event info page, and remember to register - the previous event with Hummer Winblad sold out in advance. 

See you in San Francisco!

Tags: entrepreneurship, startup pitch, Startups, SVASE, vc Funding, venture Capital

Startup Entrepreneurs who did not make it to the recent Under the Radar event, here’s your second chance: join us at Launch: Silicon Valley 2008, co-presented by SVASE and Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft.

In fact it will be more than a second chance: while the UtR event focused specifically on the business-oriented web applications, Launch 2008 is designed to uncover and showcase products and services from the most exciting of the newest startups in information technology, mobility, security, digital media next generation internet, life sciences and clean energy. The inaugural Launch event was in 2006, combined with Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start conference.

Are these events worth attending? It’s your call … all I can say is 5 of last year’s presenters received venture funding, in aggregate of $30M.

So if you are building the Next Great Business in the areas mentioned above, are (almost) ready for launch, meaning that by June 10th, 2008 you will have a product or service available, but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months, then by all means send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to Launchsv@svase.org. Submission deadline: May 9th, 2008. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.)

Last year over 170 companies from all around the country and even overseas applied, so clearly the presentation spots are in high demand. Based on the submissions up to 30 companies will be invited to present at the Launch: Silicon Valley 2008 event on June10th at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, California. Presentations slots are 10 minutes, running in 6 sessions of 5 companies each. Each presenting team will also be assigned a cocktail table in the Networking Room where they can meet with interested audience members one-on-one to answer questions and explore possibilities.

Guy Kawasaki will deliver the opening Keynote, while the closing keynote will be by Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The evening before, on June 9th the presenting companies, registered audience and selected bloggers and media will be invited to a Pre-Event Party at a prestigious location in Palo Alto, providing a further opportunity for networking with Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers.

Here’s a list of companies that launched new products/ services at last year’s Launch Silicon Valley event:
BooRah, Catalog Data Solutions, ClearlyBest.com, Connectance, Datamash Corp., Data Robotics ($10MM venture financing, Q3 ‘07), DivinR, d.light design, Eyejot, fix8, Fog Screen,GroupScope, H3.com, Industrial Origami, Jaxtr ($9MM venture financing, Q3 ‘07), Kongregate ($5MM venture financing, Q3, ‘07), LogSavvy, MyShape (Undisclosed venture financing, Q3, ‘07), Nuvora, Ready Solar, Redwood Renewables, Sensl, Shapewriter, Smaato, SnapJot, Spresent, TelId, Truemors, Wrike, and Yodio.

So if you are a qualifying startup Founder, remember the deadline: May 9th. Registration fee (incl. Networking Table + 2 tix) for the invited finalists is $695 if SVASE members, $850 otherwise. For audience members, Early Bird registration is available at $145 / $195 until May 19th, after which only full price registration will be possible. For additional details and later for updates check http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/.

Guy Kawasaki called Launch: Silicon Valley “the poor man’s Demo”. SVASE proudly wears that badge, since we’re bringing this event at a price that won’t keep any startups away. It’s your turn now: send in the Executive Summary and launch with us in June.

Update (3/21):  I was just informed that the SVASE site as well as launchsiliconvalley.org is down, and will likely be so for the next 48 hours. Bummer, apologies for the inconvenience.   In the meantime, Executive Summaries can still be sent to Launchsv@svase.org, and the , Early Bird registration works, too.

Tags: Art of the Start, business events, DealMakerMedia, Demo, entrepreneurship, Garage.com, guy kawasaki, IBDNetwork, launch silicon valley, microsoft, product showcase, SDForum, silicon valley, Social Networking, startup pitch, Startups, SVASE, Under the Radar, UtR, vc, vc Funding, venture Capital

Under the Radar is the Silicon Valley’s most established startup debut platform: a conference series organized by Dealmaker Media, covering business applications, social media, entertainment, mobility..etc. The next conference, focusing on The Business of Web Apps: Where the Web Goes to Work is only two days away and Dealmaker Media allowed me to announce a few discounted tickets. Enjoy the $100 blogger discount by registering at this link only.

32 startups will present in a rapid-fire format (correction: American Idol format) they are grouped in categories of 4 each, in two parallel tracks (yes, you do have to pick one, but can switch back and forth), and each presenter has about 15 minutes. They get grilled by the judges and audience, and at the end of the conference the winners of each category are announced.

The categories and the selected startups are:

Last year I was on the Selection Committee to the Under the Radar Office 2.0 event, and as such reviewed over a hundred companies / products. Obviously not all could make it, so I am especially pleased to see some of them on this year’s list. Of course the real measure of success is that several presenters have since received funding, gained significant brand recognition and customers. Some are back this year as Graduate Circle sponsors:

3Tera | Blogtronix | Clarizen | Longjump | Nirvanix | Q-layer | Smartsheet.com | Transera

Other than the presentations, these events are also an excellent networking opportunity amongst the 400 or so attendees, so let’s look at the attendance statistics by provided by Dealmaker Media:

Concluding the Conference, Robert Scoble will be hosting a fireside chat with Amazon’s VP & CTO, Werner Vogels to discuss the future of apps in the cloud…where its heading, who will dominate and what you should be doing now to get ahead.

The event ends with a cocktail reception, and - here’s the bonus - participants are also invited to the Opening Reception the night before at Palo Alto’s Zibibbo.

So what are you waiting for? Grab a discounted ticked while they last.

Last, but not least, this year’s Selection Committee:

Pete Cashmore | Mashable
Robert Scoble | Scobleizer
Richard MacManus | ReadWriteWeb
Ismael Ghalimi | IT|Redux
Marshall Kirkpatrick | New Media Consultant
Josh Jaffe | Tech Confidential
Jon Burke | alarm:clock
Jeremy Toeman | Stage Two Consulting
Rafe Needleman | Webware
Leon Ho | Lifehack.org
Bryce T. Roberts | O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures
Stowe Boyd | /Message
Brian Solis | bub.blicio.us
Rod Boothby | Innovation Creators
Eze Vidra | VC Cafe & Ask.com

Tags: DealMakerMedia, entrepreneurship, IBDNetwork, marketing, networking, startup pitch, Startups, Under the Radar, UtR, vc Funding, venture Capital, zoho sheet

OMG, this must be Recurring Themes Day.    Just done with the Your Blog is Your Resume theme (this one pops up about once a year with almost predictable regularity), and am now worried about Alexander Muse’s health.  He’s a healthy strong man, but wants to shoot himself if he receives another NDA.  He quotes Rick Segal (sorry, Rick for taking it verbatim, it’s just too entertaining…):

VC firms typically do not sign NDAs for first looks/meetings.

VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with promises not to evaluate the same or similar businesses included.

VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with 5 year no contact clauses included.

VC firms typically do not sign NDAs with promises to report any contact with competitive businesses included.

Rick is a Canadian VC, and his firm has received 35 NDA’s so far this year. But here’s the best part from his post:

Repeat this 10 times before you go to bed tonight:

I will not send an unsolicited beautiful leather bound binder with 600 hundred pages of detailed business, marketing, competitive, and financial information about my business along with an unsigned NDA and a request for it to be signed and returned to any VC.

It arrived in my office on Thursday and the binder was off the charts nice.

Don’t ever do it. Really. Just send the nice leather binder without all the crap.   Unless you’ve discovered a new Conspiracy Theory (but you wouldn’t send that to a VC, would you?) don’t send hundreds of pages.  Your page limit for first contact is one, perhaps two.

Back to the NDA theme, now that we’ve  seen how VC’s hate them, let’s look at why startups shouldn’t bother about them anyway:

• As an Entrepreneur it is often in your interest to share WHAT you do, as a way to solicit feedback, concept validation
• If there is a “secret sauce” of HOW you will do it, you should not share it anyway, NDA or not - not until further down the road as part of due diligence with a committed investor
• Since it’s commonly known that investors do not sign NDA’s, asking for it is akin to displaying a banner: “Newbie Here”

These were originally Dharmesh Shah’s points, and my addition:

• If the information you reveal during the presentation is enough for a competitor to jeopardize your position, than you really don’t have anything substantial to justify an investment. Your time would be better spent on product development.

Finally, a side-note to Alex (and all):  RFP’s are also a waste of time.  Extraordinary effort on formalities, and most RFP’s are issued as CYA,  to cover up the fact that the prospective Customer already has a preferred vendor / solution provider.  If you’re in the public sector, there’s no way around them, otherwise avoid RFP’s - there’s always other business to go after.

Tags: Angel Funding, Confidentiality, entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, IP, Market Validation, NDA, Non-Disclosure, RFP, Startups, vc Funding, venture Capital

Wow, quite a firestorm on a weekend over whether startups should hire only workaholics or not. It’s tip #11 on Jason Calacanis’s How to save money running a startup list that ticked off many readers:

Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or starbucks if you’re not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.

The edits show how Jason re-wrote this point after harsh criticism like Calacanis Fires People Who Have A Life on TechCrunch and Fire the workaholics by 37Signals. I don’t think he had to edit it, anyone who had been at a startup, who understands startup dynamics should “get it”.

He is talking about the need to have highly passionate team members, who at a certain stage of their life and the startup’s life are willing to - and happy to - shift their priorities. You can’t force people to be workaholics, all you get is slaves in a sweatshop, and that not only causes burnout, it does not produce quality results anyway. David at 37Signals is right:

If your start-up can only succeed by being a sweatshop, your idea is simply not good enough. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better that can be implemented by whole people, not cogs.

Agree. But great founding teams are often made up of workaholics - it has to come from the fire within, not forced. These guys locked up in a live-and-work apartment probably did not have 8-hour workdays, yet didn’t look too unhappy. A year later they are growing, picked up two rounds of funding, have 20 employees and even put TechCrunch in the toilet. I don’t expect their 20th employee to be just as passionate as the Founders, but it can’t be a 9-5 type person either. At this stage they still need driven Team Members, not simply employees.

Most startups that grow to a certain point will lose this team atmosphere at some point. They will start to hire more “regular employees”, many of whom are opportunity seekers, in for quick ride, ready to jump ship any time. Too bad, but it’s a fact of life.

Not everywhere, though. 37Signals is still a small team (by choice) but not really a startup anymore. They seem to have found the golden balance between work and life, having introduced 4-day workweeks, funding team members’ passions, be it flight lessons, cooking classes…whatever. I don’t think they whine if (when) the occasional crunch comes. Another “startup” (not really, anymore) I often write about is Atlassian: at $30M revenue and 130 employees they still preserve a unique culture, do a lot of programs together, and generally working there is a lifestyle, not just employment.

The above two have something in common, other than having good products: they did not take VC investment. They can pretty much do whatever they like. Maintaining a great team is no just a means to business, it’s part of their ultimate purpose.

The weekend firestorm comes completes a full circle: in a second TechCrunch article Mike Arrington comes to Calacanis’s defense: Startups Must Hire The Right People And Watch Every Penny. Or Fail. This is a very good article, I wholeheartedly agree with it. And while at it, let me also refer you to Startups: Executive Hiring Challenges or Beware of the Suits.

On a lighter note, the CEO of another self-funded former startup, Zoho apparently heeded 37Signals advice, and fired all his workaholics.

(Not really… Watch out for a major product announcement next week.)

Tags: 37signals, atlassian, box.net, calacanis, entrepreneurship, startup hiring, Startups, toondoo, Venture Funding, work-life balance, workaholics, zoho

  For all my love and support of SVASE, I sometimes complain that the monthly “Main Events” are a bit cut-and-dry.  Well, that will certainly not be the case tomorrow: star-power, money, frugality are all well represented on the panel discussing  Funding 2.0 – How To Build A High Growth Startup Fast And Cheap.

Matt Mullenweg started Automattic on a shoestring, and his product, Wordpress became the most popular blog platform  before he and his company accepted major funding.  

Peter Yared, ActiveGrid’s Founder isn’t exactly unknown, either, although he is no listed as Founder & CEO, wdgtbldr.  WTF? - you might ask, but that’s a company name. His website says: ps: pls snd vwls.  We don’t get a lot smarter from this… but his LinkedIn profile reveals the company name as iWidgets, and his motto is:

The first rule of iWidgets is you don’t talk about iWidgets.

Naval Ravikant has been called a lot of names: Venturebeat labeled him: Crazy Man, his website is StartupBoy, and he is a Partner, at The Hit Forge:

The Hit Forge is a group of entrepreneurial engineers building mass-market web properties. We are owners of our companies, share common tools and code, and have enough money to fund dozens of attempts to find the next big hit. We don’t get locked into failed projects, we replace pointy-haired MBAs with modern web marketing, and we share stock so that if one of us wins, everybody wins.

Oh, and since I am a SaaS fanboy, here’s another acronym: CaaS, as in Capital as a Service (although Shai Agassi would disagree) .

Mike Cassidy has co-founded and sold three companies: Stylus Innovation, Direct Hit and Xfire. He is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital, one of the Big Brand Names on venture capital.   Traditional VC firms have to change: the capital efficiency of software startups means they cannot easily invest tens of millions in one startup anymore, and their traditional model is does not allow them to participate in much larger portfolios.  But Mike is not a Partner: the Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means he is there fishing for his next Big Hit, and will jump back as entrepreneur quite soon.

If you’d like to hear these four superstars discuss issues like:

• Can any fundable startup really get to breakeven on less than $1M venture capital?
• What does a “Capital Efficient” startup look like?
• Where do you find the people & resources for next to nothing?
• How can you generate revenue straight out of the gate?
• If I can generate revenue, and I have minimal expense, why do I need Venture Capital?
• If $1M “hardly moves the needle,” what returns are VCs now looking for?

- hurry, register here, before the event sells out.  See you tomorrow, at 6pm in Palo Alto.

Tags: automattic, entrepreneurship, funding, SDForum, Startups, SVASE, Technology, TiE, vc Funding, venture Capital, wordpress

Israel is a hotbed of technology startups - in 2007 alone they raised $1.76 billion of Venture Funding2007, the highest amount in six years. The California Israel Chamber of Commerce is organizing an event, where 90 companies applied to take part in the Israel Web Tour, 4 days of intense meetings with investors, strategic partners, customers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders.

The 15 winning startups, whose Founders/CEO’s will participate are: 5min.com, PLYmedia.com , AllofMe, NuConomy , ClickTale, blogTV.com , Sportingo, PicScout , Qoof, 8hands, Velingo , Innovid, Semingo, PageOnce, and Journeys - the event site has a short synopsis on all of them.

The highlight of the tour will be a public showcase on February 6th, 8:00AM - 2:00PM 2008 @ the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View. Tickets are available here. Ticket holders are also invited free to the closing night party in San Francisco at Slide on February 7th.

The Tour is sponsored by Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Lehman Brothers, USVP, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosatti, Elron and Gemini Israel Funds and the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.

Tags: California Israel Chamber of Commerce, CICC, entrepreneurship, IsraelWebTour, microsoft, Startups, Venture Funding